Healing Dr Snake
by Caz251
Summary: Toshiko to the rescue, doing what she does best, saving Owen's hide. This is the last installment of my universe A Twist In The Tail.


Title: Healing Dr Snake

Author: Caz251

Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Owen, Jack, Tosh, Ianto and Gwen.

Rating: G

Summary: Toshiko to the rescue, doing what she does best, saving Owen's hide.

Word Count: 1122

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC, however much I wished otherwise.

AN: This is the last installment of my universe A Twist In The Tail.

Owen glared balefully up at Toshiko, she had said that she had an idea how to fix his problems, not make them worse. He had hated being a snake last time, but at least he had been able to laze amongst his plants for a while. Now though he was stuck in the autopsy bay with Jack and Ianto, and neither of them seemed sympathetic to his plight at all. In fact they were being disgustingly mushy and couple-y something they knew he hated, he was sure that they were acting that way as they knew he couldn't make any of his snide remarks, throw anything at them or run away.

Toshiko giggled as if she could understand his thoughts and hastened to reassure him that her plan should work. She hummed to herself as she ran the Bekeran scanner over his small snake body. "Okay, perfect." She muttered to herself. "Owen your transformation needed to be done in a longer process. You had started to assimilate as a snake and needed time to de-assimilate. This device works in two stages. Jack would have pressed two different buttons to turn you back. The first preps the machine and the body for the change, and the second will complete the change."

Toshiko looked around at the others to see if they were following her. She pressed the first button on the machine as she did so and heard it give out a small beep. "This should tell us when it is ready for the transformation to take place. We will then turn you back and you'll be human again, fully human." She finished as she threw a glare in Jack's direction.

She picked Owen up and wound him round her neck, "I have work to do, you are coming with me." She told him as she climbed the stairs back to the main part of the hub. Sitting at her computer she threw herself into her work, explaining things to Owen as she worked.

Owen gave a small snaky smile as he listened to Toshiko get excited about something she was explaining to him. She was rather cute when she go into one of her geeky little rants, he wondered why he had never noticed it before. She also smelt rather good, he didn't know if it was her soup, her perfume or just her, but he liked the smell. He knew that he had been the worst person he could have been to Toshiko in the past, but she had stood up to Jack for him and she was doing her best to turn him back to his own self.

She was pretty amazing and he had just never really noticed it. Sure he had been glad each time she saved his life with some amazing piece of technology, but he had never really acknowledged Toshiko for her genius. She was a quiet person and he was brash and loud. He had got on better with both Suzie and Gwen, but that was different, he had only wanted some fun with them, they were like the women he dated in medical school. Tosh on the other hand, well she was more like his Katie, and he had always stayed away from her for that reason.

Now though he was sure that he had to do something, not just because she had helped him, but because he knew about her crush and he couldn't ignore it or blatantly deride it anymore. It wasn't fair to Toshiko, and it wasn't fair to him either.

The cog door rolling back caught his attention and he heard the sound of Gwen coming in her heels clacking on the floor. Owen really didn't want to be seen by her in this state, it was bad enough that Jack, Ianto and Tosh had seen him like this, but Gwen would never let him live it down. Deciding that Hiding was his best bet, he tried to squeeze himself under Toshiko's shirt, something that she didn't seem too happy about and didn't allow to happen. At the same time though she realised his problem and asked Gwen to fetch something from the archives for her, explaining that she couldn't leave her work at the moment, but really needed the technology.

Luckily Gwen took the bait and left the main hub. Not even a minute after she left the machine beeped again, a longer tone this time and Toshiko stood, making her way back to his domain. She placed him back on the autopsy table and pressed the other button. Where the snake had been moments before Owen appeared in full human form, although he did give himself a thorough once over to check that everything was wasn't that he didn't trust Toshiko, but after his past experience with the machine he felt better making sure that nothing else unexpected had happened.

"Thanks." He muttered to Toshiko as she left him there, heading back to her program before Gwen returned from the archives.

Owen turned back to the device, looked at with assessing eyes before grabbing his camera from his desk. He photographed the machine thoroughly before placing it back into its storage box and closing it. He then set about creating a full file on the device, with all the knowledge that he had gained during his time as a snake of how the device worked and everything that Toshiko had concluded. When he was finished he took the printed copy of the file to Ianto to file correctly while he took the box back to where he had found it.

He then made his way back up to the main hub where Gwen was getting ready to leave and Toshiko was still hard at work. He walked straight up to Toshiko's desk, looking over her shoulder at her screen, trying to figure out what she was working on and whether it needed her constant presence. Sighing when he couldn't figure it out, he asked.

"Does this need you here? Or can you come with me for a drink?" Owen muttered quietly, so that Gwen didn't overhear. He wanted a drink with Toshiko, not a team outing.

He nodded goodnight to Gwen as she left and grabbed his jacket, picking up Toshiko's coat and bag for her, staring at her until she set her computer to continue her work automatically and put her coat on. It was as they were walking into a pub not far from the hub that Toshiko asked a question that had obviously been bugging her.

"So why were you using that machine anyway?" She queried.

"It was labelled medical." Owen replied calmly, drinking from his glass before continuing, "And I was bored."


End file.
